CARONTE

"Caronte" is the second studio album by Anglo-Italian band The Trip and was released in 1971 on the RCA label with a consolidated line up featuring Arvid "Wegg" Andersen (vocals, bass), Billy Gray (electric and acoustic guitar, vocals), Joe Vescovi (vocals, Hammond organ, piano church organ, Mellotron) and Pino Sinnone (drums, percussion). It's a concept album inspired by the memory of some dead rock heroes such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin where the band blend classical influences with hard rock and psychedelia, Italian culture and American dreams, showing great creativity and musicianship. The art work was taken from some Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy", that were re-elaborated with irony and a touch of colour in a curious pop-art style to depict the content of the album...

The instrumental opener "Caronte I" (Charon I) starts by pulsing bass lines, dark organ waves and spectral electric guitar blows that take you into the underworld, across the river of woe, where you can embark on Charon's ferryboat like Dante and Virgil. Your journey through hell begins... "Dear Charon, thank you for the invitation to look apon a souls damnation. With us are a chosen few that we should like to interview..." (Quote from the liner notes).

The following "Two Brothers" opens with the noise of brakes and tires on the asphalt and was inspired by the final scene of "Easy Rider", the 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern. Shots and a riderless motorcycle flying through the air, a running man desperately trying to escape from his killers, the road covered in blood, fire and flames, steel and leather... The atmosphere is dark while bass and organ weave a requiem for the dead riders, then the rhythm rises as the music and lyrics evoke the protagonists on their highway to hell...

The dreamy, delicate ballad "Little Janie" opens the second side of the LP. It's a piece dedicated to Janis Joplin and evokes her tragic fate... Next comes the long, complex "L'ultima ora e Ode a J. Hendrix" (The last hour and Ode to J. Hendrix) that conjures up the reeling shadow of the dead guitar hero in a curious mix of classical inspired organ patterns, powerful rock passages and crying guitar solos. Every now and again this piece could recall the last part of the first New Trolls' "Concerto Grosso"...

Then the short instrumental "Caronte II" closes this particular journey through hell leaving up to your imagination the rest of the story...

On the whole, a very good album and one of the very first examples of Italian Progressive Rock along with "Collage" by Le Orme or "L'uomo" by Osanna.